After the showing of Newtown, I can honestly say i was speechless. That was an incredibly impactful documentary and if there had to be a documentary on this topic, this documentary was the way to do it.
One cinematographic element that i found significantly impactful was the breaks to a solid black screen spaced between the interview. I felt like this really added to the impact of the interviewee’s stories. I spoke to Kim after the film to get a more in-depth understanding of why she, and the editor chose to put in those black screens. She explained to me that it was placed to get a breather from the intensity of the story that was being told. In my experience watching the documentary, those blanks in the interview allowed me to connect emotionally to the film. It allowed me to actual visualize what the interviewee was describing. Whether it was a tragic or gruesome scene, it brought me into the film.
One comment/question I had for the class would be how you feel about the choice of only choosing three families affected by this tragedy. I was thinking about it after we got out of the film, wondering how the families who stories weren’t told felt. Did those other families feel isolated. Im interested in knowing how others feel about this aspect of the film.
Other than that, I think it was an incredible film and I appreciated how Kim explained how it wasn’t her story, and how she didn’t show the horror scenes that were inevitably produced by the tragedy.